


Once Upon a Wish

by jolly_love



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Almost Head Auror Harry Potter, Alternate Universe, Draco Malfoy Needs a Hug, Draco wishes upon a star, F/M, M/M, POV Draco Malfoy, References to Depression, more tags will follow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-29
Updated: 2019-12-30
Packaged: 2020-11-01 13:17:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 20,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20815784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jolly_love/pseuds/jolly_love
Summary: Draco's life is a mess. He lost his job, his friends stopped reacting to him and when Pansy finally tells him that she can't be his friend anymore, he makes an unrashional wish upon a star to get a second chance at life. This throws him into a life where Harry's his boyfriend and they live together in Grimmauld Place. Now, he has to figure out how to get back... Or does he even want to get back?





	1. A Wish

Draco was sure that his face was about to crumble with the amount of glaring and frowning he was doing right now. It had not been his fault! How the hell did the most important paper for his job not appear in the folder?! He had seen it and he remembered quite vividly that he had put it into that stupid folder!

And now that. Fired. Over a fucking parchment!

Rolling his eyes, Draco walked out of the Ministry, not without noticing one of the new Aurors smirking at two others. Yes, so he had been framed. Or set up or whatever. It wasn’t as if it counted now anyway.

He decided to walk home, not really in the mood to apparate and to visit Pansy. She had always had a good idea, maybe she could fix it as well. The rain was pouring down heavily as if someone was walking behind Draco and pouring buckets of water over his head. He couldn’t care less. In a few weeks, he had to move out of his apartment. Again. He had to try and find a job as quickly as possible, otherwise, his father was going to be all over him. Again. 

Sighing, Draco finally reached his place, unlocked the door and threw all his stuff on the arm chair. He didn’t even bother getting out of his jacket, but fell onto the couch and started the television. Best distraction and he really needed it right now. His apartment basically had a television, a couch and a bed. That was all he needed. He had no idea how to continue with his life... 

However, the newest season of whatever show he was watching, couldn’t distract him long enough. He cursed again and hit the couch with his fists.

“Why does that always happen to me?! Fucking hell!”

Draco buried his head between his knees and held his hands over his ears. That always worked to get him out of whatever state he had been. Well, right now money would be the only thing to get him out of the state he was in. The only problem: he couldn’t get any money from anyone.

So, he raised his head again and sighed. The rain had stopped and Draco opened the door towards the balcony. The sky was dark already, but the clouds were gone and he could see the most beautiful stars. He could name them all, but that also wasn’t really something with which you could make money.

He closed his eyes again and inhaled the cold autumn air. Maybe it was a little too cold to be outside, but Draco couldn’t just keep pretending to care. He had done everything to fit in and it never turned out well. There was always something that people would do or say that would turn him back into being the git he was during school. And he hated it as much as the people around him did.

His fire place sounded and once Draco had turned around, Pansy stood in the middle of his two bedroom apartment. She looked rather fine and her skin tone was actually healthy, not like Draco's. She had experimented a few weeks prior and had shaved one side of her head. It looked very good.

“Evening Pansy.”

His best friend walked closer and stood next to him on the tiny balcony. “This is bullshit, Draco. ‘Evening Pansy’? As if nothing happened?”

“Well, nothing actually happened. I just got fired…”

“Again!” Pansy commented and turned to face him. “We both know that in this freaking world, Slytherins have it extra hard to get a job and with you being a Death Eater…”

Draco rolled his eyes. “Former Death Eater, Pans.”

“As if people cared. They see the mark and decide you’re no good. That man owed me a favor which is why I could get you into the Aurors. I have nothing left!”

Rubbing his temples, Draco sighed. “I know, Pans. And I’m sorry. I never meant for you to stick your neck out for me. But I don’t think I was the one who forgot something. I think I was set up!”

As if Draco had been saying this every time he got fired (which he didn’t), Pansy rolled her eyes and shrugged her shoulders. She turned around and looked back into the dark apartment.

“Draco, you’re on your own. My life is finally getting better and I can’t just come by every other week and get you another job. Paul asked me to marry him today. I was coming by to tell you that, not to get drawn into your personal drama. I’m sorry, Draco, but I can’t help you anymore. Maybe you should ask a genie.”

With that she walked back towards the fire place and was gone. Probably for good. Draco sighed again and placed his head on the banister and looked at the busy street. Everyone had a place to go and a life of their own. Draco silently wished he could take their place and be important to just someone. Or actually have a life. He wasn’t doing anything else but work and eat and sleep. And now he couldn’t work, so basically eat and sleep and trying to survive.

“I fucking hate my life.”

Looking at the stars again, Draco saw a shooting star. He sighed and followed it, before he closed his eyes and actually wished upon a star.

“I wish to get a second chance at life.”

He kept his eyes closed for a few more seconds, before opening them again and looking at the stars. Great, he felt even weirder than before. No, actually he felt stupid.

Silently cursing, Draco walked to his bed and fell right into it. He was extremely tired and he didn’t bother to get out of his clothes. Why should he anyway? There was nothing he was working for and no real goals. Maybe what he needed was a total new start. Moving to America or France. Though France was a little too close. So America it was.

*

Draco woke up to the smell of pancakes. That was weird. Pansy had been the only friend left and she had walked out of his life yesterday. Why would she be back and make pancakes? Also, he had never actually used to kitchen in his apartment.

Getting up slowly, Draco walked towards the bathroom, only to be faced with a wall in his head. “Ouch! What the fuck?!”

Frowning, Draco opened his eyes fully and looked around. That was not his bedroom… Where was he and what happened?!

The walls were painted green and golden, the bed was huge (so much bigger than his one person bed) and completely green. There were two arm chairs in two corners with two tables and a few books on them. And then, Draco noticed some pictures at the wall next to the door.

He walked closer carefully, but he had not been prepared for what he found. Harry freaking Potter was smiling at him. Great. Rolling his eyes, he suddenly noticed another picture, where they were both… kissing? Hold on! What was going on?!

Before Draco had time to think about where he was, the door opened and the bloody Savior himself walked in. He looked at the bed and turned to him then, smiling. In his hands he was carrying a tray of freshly made pancakes, coffee and orange juice.

“Morning, babe. Glad to see you’re awake and looking okay!”


	2. Maybe it's all a Dream?

Draco drew blank. He wanted to say something, but he could not think of anything. Instead he watched Potter placing the tray on a small table and doing the bed with a flick of his hand. Life had been good to the Golden Boy, he looked very handsome.

He had to roll his eyes at his own thoughts. However, the white, loose button up shirt with the three first buttons undone and his sleeve rolled up worked perfectly with his broad body shape. He was wearing jeans and mismatched socks, which actually made Draco smile a little. It felt weird, he couldn’t remember the last time he had smiled at something.

Potter placed the tray of food on the bed and waved him closer. However, since Draco wasn’t moving, the Hero of the Wizarding World looked at him frowning.

“Are you okay, Dray?” Potter asked. “If this is about your job, we both knew that it wouldn’t work out from the beginning. I’m pretty sure Pansy just wanted to get that dept erased. We’re going to find something else for you! Just don’t give up hope.”

Draco shook his head and frowned. “Sorry, what?”

Potter smiled and got up. He was standing in front of him and Draco suddenly felt all the air escaping his lungs. What was going on? Not only right now with his body, but in general?!

“Eat.” Potter held a fork in his face with a piece of pancake attached to it. “You’ll feel better once you eat. It’s always like that.”

Draco decided to chance it and eat whatever the Savior made for him. It tasted divine! It wasn’t just a normal pancake, but a blueberry pancake which Draco adored. How did the Savior know about that? And what was he even doing in… wherever he was?

Potter grabbed his hand and led him to the bed, where he made him sit and gave him coffee and a plate with pancakes. Suddenly, Draco realized how hungry he was and he started to dig into the food. He had never had something like that, it tasted amazing!

Once he had staved off hunger, he looked at Potter again, who looked very relaxed. And suddenly he realized that he was alone with the Hero and… what was even going on?!

Before he could ask anything, Potter downed his orange juice and put his last pancake onto Draco’s plate, while winking at him. Draco felt himself shiver. What. The Hell. Was. Going. On?!

“I’m a little late for work, but I’ll make sure to be back for dinner, okay darling? See you later!” He kissed Draco’s cheek and was gone before he could do anything.

Draco touched the spot Potter had kissed and felt himself blush. That was extremely weird. Getting up himself, Draco decided to snoop around, as soon as he had found the toilet and his clothes.

*

He could only guess that he was in Potter’s home – Grimmauld Place to be exact. His mother had been talking about it for a while and he remembered her telling him all about it. However, it looked quite different. The hallways were painted in a creamy yellow white and the pictures at the wall were either actual pictures of both their families or portraits. There was one of Sirius Black and Severus Snape.

Draco frowned, but he couldn’t talk to the portraits, as both were gone from their frames. He had only noticed their name plates. Walking down the stairs, Draco kept eating the pancakes and was finally on the ground floor. He looked around and saw five doors. Sighing, he opened the one in front of him which turned out to be an office. From the looks of it – red and gold, a Snitch hanging at the wall, a lot of papers flying around – it must have been Potter’s office. It was really interesting how all the chaos was only in one room, since the rest of the house was quite clean.

Closing the door again, Draco looked at the room next to this and when he opened this door, it must have been… his office? Quite like the other room, this one was painted in silver and green and when he walked inside, he saw a huge library with books he had long lost. To survive meant he had to sell the original books, since they gave quite some money. In whatever this was, another time line or something like that, he still had all his books.

He let his hands trail down the spines of the books and looked around again. There were a lot of pictures with him and his friends. Frowning, Draco looked at them and shook his head. He still had all his friends left?! Blaise, Theo, Greg and Pansy were smiling at the camera and he was standing in the middle, smiling broadly.

This was really weird. Draco chuckled and shook his head. The sentence ‘this was really weird’ was probably going to become his new mantra.

He left the room again and looked at the door next to the stairs. “Probably the door for the basement.”

As it turned out, he was right. And that left only two doors: One was the entrance, the other for the living room or kitchen, or something. He finished the last piece of pancake, when he opened the door and was faced with the living room. Grinning about how correct he was, he looked around for some other doors and found the kitchen entrance right away.

He cleaned up everything and just as he finished, he heard someone walking out of the fire place. Draco turned on his heels and walked out of the kitchen to find Pansy standing there.

“Hey Drake! I heard you got fired, I’m so sorry!”

Draco smirked at her and shook his head. “Don’t worry. I hated the job.”

Pansy shrugged her shoulders. “It was worth a try, right?”

Grinning, Draco could very well tell that Potter had been right. His boss probably had a debt with the Parkinsons and Pansy used that to get him a job.

“For having lost a job, you look really relaxed, Dray. Did Harry show you that you’re still worth something to him last night?” she winked at him and held her hands up almost immediately. “I do not want to hear any details, though. I came to give you some good news!”

Draco, whose brain was still stuck and picturing the part with Potter having his wicked way with him, shook his head. Good news? What would be better than Paul asking Pansy to marry him?

Pansy smiled broadly. “Paul asked me to marry him!”

“He… He what? He did that yesterday!”

His best friends raised her eyebrows. “Yes… did you know?! Salazar, you are an amazing human being! How could you keep this from me for all this time?!” She laughed loudly, but Draco shook his head.

“What are you saying? He asked you yesterday; you told me so, when you visited me…”

Nothing made sense anymore. He rubbed his temples and fell into an arm chair. Pansy sat down frowning as well.

“Drake? What is going on?”

Draco sighed, completely lost in whatever the hell was happening right now in his life. “I don’t know! Yesterday, I lost my job, I walked home – not here though – and you came over to tell me that Paul asked you and told me to ask a genie for something…”

“I do not understand, but did you ask a genie?” Pansy asked with wide eyes.

Draco laughed about her reaction and he shook his head. “Everyone knows genies aren’t real, Pans! Come on!”

Pansy stared at him with raised eyebrows and sighed. “Draco, I can’t believe you don’t know that! Everything’s real and if you, as a wizard, ask for something that might be a fairytale, it actually happens!”

That was actually news to him. Draco stopped immediately and remembered what happened last night. He sucked in a sharp breath and bit his lips. “What if… what if I wished upon a star?”

“Draco!” Pansy looked furious. Yes, that definitely had been a mistake. “What did you wish?!”

Rubbing his temples, he tried to think hard about what he had wished. Luckily, it came back rather quickly. “I wished to get a second chance at life.”

Looking at his best friend, she nodded and sighed then. “Not that bad, Drake. I mean; yes, you now have a different life than before. What changed?”

Pansy seemed really interested. Draco chuckled, but rolled his eyes. “Well, the things that are the same; I’ve lost my job, Paul asked you to marry him… That’s pretty much it.”

“Are you… wait, that’s it?”

Draco nodded. “I want to know some things. First of all; I have no idea what I’m doing in Potter’s house! Can you tell me?”

Laughing loudly, Pansy nodded. “I can’t believe you call him _Potter_. You haven’t called him that for about five years! Well, unless you’re angry. You guys have been dating for four years and last month he asked you to move in with him, which you did. To be honest, you were basically living here already. If I wanted to find you, I could always find you here.”

“I’m dating Potter?” Draco asked with wide eyes, which made Pansy burst out laughing again. “So, in my other life, my parents were not happy with me being gay. I never acted on those instincts… How are they taking it here?”

This time, Pansy sighed. “Well, not really differently. Your father disowned you and chased you out of the house. You were living with me until you got a job and could afford a small apartment.”

Draco nodded. “Yes, that didn’t change then. And how close are we?”

Pansy frowned and tilted her head. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, are we still best friends or did you cancel our friendship?”

“We are still friends. Draco, what happened in this other life?” She looked a little concerned and Draco sighed.

He fell back in his arm chair and looked at the ceiling. “You said that your life was getting better and better and that you just didn’t have time for my personal drama… So you canceled our friendship.”

They were quiet for a while, until Pansy spoke up again. “Well, I’m sorry about that. To be honest though, we barely talk about personal stories here. Harry’s the one who hears all of it, but ever since you first met him, well…” she grinned. “Ever since you started dating, he had been incredibly good at helping you get up again.”

Draco smiled a little. That did sound rather good, if he was honest. “How did… How did we meet?”

Now it was Pansy who smiled broadly again. “We went out, because you finally found another job and you got way too drunk and him being the Savior, he took you home and let you sleep off the alcohol. After that, I hadn’t seen you for two days and I thought something had happened, but actually, you two were just having fun.”

“Just like that? And… for two days?!” Draco was confused. In his real life, he had never had anyone more than a night. And never twice.

Pansy chuckled. “Yes, Draco! Just like that. And for two days. I have never seen you more relaxed and more in love than after these two days.”


	3. Dinner Double Date

After a few hours, Pansy was finally done asking him into oblivion and smirked, before she walked out. “You’re going to have fun tonight, Draco darling. You’re going to meet Hermione and Ron for your weekly dinner double date.”

Draco stood still and turned around. “Oh no! What do I do?!”

Pansy laughed and shrugged her shoulders. “I have no idea, darling. You might have to tell all of them that you’re from a different universe or time line or something like that.”

“Hell no!” Draco widened his eyes. How could he survive something like that?! “Please tell me everything you know about them!”

Over the next hour, Draco had to admit that he had never been more interested in learning more about the Golden Trio and the relationship of the Ginger and Muggleblood. 

Once Pansy finally left, Potter walked back in and smiled at him. He looked tired and a little sad. Before Draco could think more about that, he broadly smiled at him. “Hello, love. How was your day?”

Draco smirked slightly. “Eventful.”

Potter chuckled. “Nice. Pansy was here right? Paul told me something about that.”

Nodding, Draco got up from his chair and sighed. “So, when are we meeting G… Hermione and Ron?” He had almost said ‘Granger’ and ‘Weasel’, however, since he had no idea what he would have called them, he decided to go with their normal names.

“In an hour. We’re going to visit them in their new home. They finally unpacked everything.”

Potter smiled at him and after a quick kiss on Draco’s cheek, he went up the stairs and Draco heard him starting the shower. Falling back into the armchair, Draco sighed and rolled his eyes. He was not ready to deal with anything that was about to happen. Nothing here was helping him to deal with the new situation he was in. Interestingly enough, Draco didn’t care much about his relationship with Potter. Well, actually ‘care’ was the wrong word… He wasn’t angry at what was going on right now… He had always dreamt about being in said relationship and now it was actually happening! 

While Potter took a shower, Draco once again sat on the couch, thinking long and hard about why he got here and how it happened. He had gone to sleep and the second he had woken up, he was here. How could that have happened?

Draco had come to no conclusion and in no time, they had to leave and go visit the two other people that were a part of the Golden Trio. Luckily, Potter hadn’t asked him anything, simply apparated the two of them right to the front step of a small home. It was a one story house with a lovely garden right in front of the house.

The door was opened immediately and Weasley stood there, grinning at two of them. He looked rather good, though Draco didn’t much care for his long hair that he had put into a ponytail.

“Welcome, welcome! ‘Mione’s still in the bathroom” Weasley grinned at the two of them und hugged Potter tightly, before moving over to Draco and hugging him as well. If he was surprised by Draco’s stiffness, he didn’t make it obvious. Or… he simply didn’t notice.

Potter grinned. “Fixing her makeup?”

“As if I would know, Harry!” Weasley laughed and shook his head. “You’re the gay one around here, shouldn’t you know more about makeup?”

“Just because I’m gay doesn’t mean I know everything about makeup, honestly Ron” Potter had a smile playing around his lips. Draco smirked.

“Kidding! I was kidding!”

Draco shook his head. “It wasn’t that funny, W- Ron.”

“Oh wow, thank you for your support, Malfoy!” Weasley rolled his eyes, but was interrupted by Potter rather quickly.

“Be nice, Ron!”

Weasley shook his head, put his hands at his waist and was probably a far cry away from welcoming them into his house. Draco wondered if it was always like that. Before he could think more about this, the redhead started talking again. “What? I am nice, your boyfriend’s the one who’s not nice!”

Draco rolled his eyes. “I’m nice to people who earned it.”

“Hello everyone” Granger walked out behind her husband/fiancé/boyfriend… They were married. So, husband. Well, she walked out behind him and grabbed him by his waist, dragging him away from the entrance. “Do come in. Are you already fighting? It didn’t even take you five minutes.” She was smirking and Potter laughed.

“I know, next time they’re going to fight even before we entered the house” he said and winked at her. Draco decided not to tell him that technically, they were already fighting before they had entered the house. Inside the house, everything was already on the table, the Weasley’s had made Lasagna, which Draco adored (he hadn’t had a homecooked meal for almost two years now) and the dinner had been quiet for a while, until Weasley decided to talk to him again.

“How are you doing, Draco? You need to find a new job now, right?” Weasley asked and looked slightly pitiful. Draco narrowed his eyes.

This time, though, it wasn’t Potter who tried to talk sense into his friend, but the wife. “Ron! Be nice!”

Potter laughed and shook his head. “See, even your wife tells you to be nice.”

Weasley held up his hands in surrender and rolled his eyes once again. “Okay, okay. Sorry, Draco! Do you have any plans?”

Draco smirked slightly, but had his facial featured back under control. “No, I have no idea what to do next… Do you have any ideas?”

Ron thought for a few minutes, before turning back to him. “Harry could use another secretary.”

“No, sorry, guys. Draco can do so much better than be my secretary!” Potter sighed and ate another piece of Lasagna. Weasley snorted, but was quiet almost immediately, once Granger smacked him with a towel.

Draco turned to Potter, pretending he hadn’t noticed anything that had happened between the married couple. “Well, until then, do you think I could work for you?”

“Sure… Why not.” Potter shrugged his shoulders and smiled at him. Draco suddenly felt so much better, having an option and the rest of the double date dinner went peacefully.

Well, that was until Weasley made him play chess, which apparently they had been doing for a while, since Potter wasn’t good at all.

Everything went smoothly, until Weasley frowned at him suddenly and sat back up. “I’m a little surprised. Usually, you’re much better.”

“What do you mean?” Draco tried his hardest not to freak out. Having lived alone for so long, he wasn’t used to be around other people and he could also let his emotions free. Now, he had to try his hardest to get his emotions back under control. This damn mask!

Weasley apparently was completely blind to his freak out and simply stated: “You’re not blocking anything. You had my queen stuck and moved the knight! You once told me that you’d never let my queen free!”

“I actually missed that one.” Draco felt himself shiver and tried his hardest not to freak out. However, the more things happened, the more he realized that he was deeper in this bullshit that he would have liked.

Suddenly, he got unexpected backup from Potter. “Draco went through a lot this week, Ron. You need to give him some slack.” The Gryffindor rolled his eyes and grinned, when Weasley shook his head.

“Maybe another game could help him get better?” Granger asked, since she had just entered the room again with a lot of parchments in her arm.

Potter looked very distracted, when he turned to her. “Maybe. Okay, you said you wanted to talk about the new rules for Ministry workers?” He suddenly seemed to be the old one again.

Granger grinned and held out another parchment. “Yes… I’m not really into any of these and I thought maybe if I got the Head Auror into the game…”

Before she could continue, Potter interrupted her. “Not Head Auror now!” Rolling his eyes, they grinned at each other and Potter continued. “But working on it.” He winked at her.

Draco, who had been listening in on their discussion, decided to speak up. “If you’re about to get the job as Head Auror, maybe you do need another secretary.”

“Draco, what is going on? You never were this distracted when we played!” Weasley sighed frustrated.

And once again, Draco got backup from Potter. “Ron, Draco’s not really in shape right now.”

“Yes, if you lost your job, don’t you think you’d have problems playing chess?” Granger jumped in and raised her eyebrows at her husband, who once again held up his hands in surrender.

“Okay, okay, sorry, Draco.”

Draco chuckled and nodded at him. “No worries. Sorry for making it difficult to play chess.”

“Don’t worry about that, Draco. I’m actually rather tired and I think I need to go to bed…”

Their date ended soon after and Draco was really happy that Potter had somehow helped him getting through this date, which could have ended in a nightmare. Well, if he would tell Potter all about his situation, maybe he could help him even more. Before that could happen, however, Draco needed to find out whether he actually wanted something to change or not…


	4. Good Friends always know

The next thing that scared Draco to death was Blaise actually asking him on a night out with the other Slytherins – including Pansy. Potter had already told him to go, when Blaise had come by and well, Draco couldn’t really tell his friend to go away. His friend told him he’d come by at nine with Theodore, Pansy and Gregory.

Great… So Draco needed to get over this once again… he was extremely looking forward towards this. Well, at least Draco knew that his sarcasm was still very high, otherwise he wasn’t sure if he could have survived this…

Potter wished him a fun night, once Pansy came at half past eight and told both of them that he would be visiting Ginny and watching her train. While he walked into the fire, Draco frowned at Pansy.

“So, why would he go and watch Weaslette?”

Pansy rolled her eyes but chuckled. “The two of them train a children Quidditch team. They are absolutely amazing and they’re booked for the next ten years, I believe. People are standing lines when they hear that someone fell out of the team.”

Draco was surprised to hear, though it would make sense. A children Quidditch team led by two great Quidditch players? Yes, people would do all kinds of things to get their children into that team.

His best friend brought him to a small Muggle restaurant, somewhere in the middle of nowhere in Muggle London. At the table at the back sat Draco’s three other friends. They all looked so well and happy.

It was hard not to compare them to when they were last talking to him in his other life. They were so full of anger when they told him not to contact them ever again, because they were done with his abysmal life choices.

“Look, who I found!” Pansy called out as they walked closer.

Blaise sat so he could look into their direction. He looked rather grown up with his white suit that was absolutely perfectly shining against his natural dark skin. He smirked and even though he clearly saw them walking closer, he offered up an explanation which was very likely a weird one. “Let me guess, let me guess!” He called out and his eyes sparkled. “It’s Santa Clause!”

Pansy laughed, while Theodore shook his head. “It’s October, Blaise!” The Slytherin was wearing a Slytherin green, light jumper with a few flowers printed on it.

“Maybe Santa Clause got confused” Blaise offered the explanation.

Now, even Gregory jumped on the bandwagon and grinned towards the group. And even though Draco and Pansy now stood exactly next to all of them, they kept theorizing.

“Maybe his elves were working extra hard and now Santa thinks it’s already Christmas.”

Theodore rolled his eyes, chuckling slightly. “How can Santa’s elves work hard when children haven’t even started writing wish lists?”

Draco copied Theodore’s action and raised his eyebrows looking at Gregory, who was fidgeting with his violet scarf over his very colorful pullover. Just then, he realized that his former best friend looked very much like all those stereotypical gay guys form the TV. However, he quickly disregarded that thought, since clothing shouldn’t be a factor in whether or not someone was gay.

After a long pause, Blaise – who had tried to come up with an answer as well – finally started laughing. “Okay, you got me there.”

Pansy rolled her eyes, though she was smirking. “Guys, I was talking about Draco!”

“Draco old boy! How’s life treating you?” Blaise got up and hugged him tightly. Draco was very confused, but tried his best not to let it show.

Theodore stood up too and hugged him as well, as did Gregory. The more things happened, the more Draco was confused… Since when did his friends like that much hugging? He had always thought that Gryffindors needed that, not Slytherins.

However, before he could think more about it, Theodore started talking again. “Why weren’t you at the game with us?” Pansy and Draco sat down on the bench where Blaise had been sitting all alone.

“What game?”

Gregory laughed and shook his head. “Honestly, Draco! ‘What game’” he smirked but decided to answer the question nevertheless. “Appleby Arrows against Tutshill Tornados.”

Draco thought that at least in this time line, the game was the same, though for some reason he couldn’t care less. In fact, he didn’t really understand, why he should care about this game…

“I was out cold” Draco answered rather sarcastic.

Theodore rolled his eyes. “Oh, come on! There’s this seeker that we all adore!”

Gregory, ever the helpful Hufflepuff Slytherin, nodded and decided to talk more about said Seeker. Draco was a little thankful for that, so that he knew at least what they were talking about. “He looks like Harry!”

Once again, it was very weird to hear his friends say ‘Harry’ instead of ‘Potter’. When did that even happen?! However, Draco didn’t really have time to think about that. “Well, I’m sorry I disappointed you, but I was actually sick and couldn’t come.” That wasn’t the truth, but when was the truth ever an option when you’ve changed your life? When you wished upon a star?

Blaise smirked. “Don’t you want to know who won?”

On the inside, he was rolling his eyes. Why would they discuss Quidditch games? He had always thought that his friends weren’t that into Quidditch. Though… if he thought about it, he hadn’t been such a good friend, since he had always been complaining about his bad life and sad existence. If he was honest, he would have canceled his own friendship as well.

“Draco?” Gregory snapped him out of his thoughts.

He jerked up and looked at all of them. “Um… Tornados?”

“Appleby Arrows! Which means you owe me twenty galleons!” Theodore laughed and raised his eyebrows a few times quickly.

“What? I would never bet twenty galleons!” Draco shook his head. Twenty galleons?! Was he stupid? Betting on a Quidditch outcome?! Well, betting wasn't the problem, the problem was the amount of money he had apparently bet.

Gregory laughed and waved the waiter towards them. “Well, bad luck for you, because we all were here and are witnesses to you betting twenty galleons!”

“Salazar…” Draco stared down at the table, before the waiter was writing down their drinks. Well, he wasn’t really writing down what they told him to, he asked if it was the usual and after confirming it, he winked at Gregory, before walking away. “Why would I do something like that?!” Draco mumbled under his breath.

Before anyone could ask anything, Blaise turned towards Pansy and frowned slightly. “Pans, why are you so quiet?”

“I’m not really a fan of those bad Quidditch players, so why would I talk now?” Pansy smirked, but was almost drowned out by the three other people at the table almost yelling at the top of their lungs.

“They’re not bad!” Theodore shook his head.

“How could you?!” Blaise threw his hands in the air.

“Don’t say something like that!” Gregory crossed his arms over his chest.

It was quiet for a second, before three (or four) pair of eyes landed on him. Draco frowned. “What?” 

The first person to speak up was Theodore. “Why aren’t you saying anything?”

“She just trashed your favorite Quidditch team! A few days ago you would have attacked her…” Blaise added and frowned.

“What’s going on?” Gregory asked and looked very much concerned.

Draco was quiet, unsure what he should tell them and if he should actually say anything. He could be gone in a few seconds… Who knew what his life had in store. The waiter came back with the drinks and shared a smile with Gregory, before the Slytherin turned back towards Draco.

Luckily (or unluckily) for Draco, Pansy decided to talk. “This is not our Draco.”

There was a pregnant pause, before Theodore shook his head. “What do you mean?”

Pansy looked at Draco, silently nudging him to tell his friends what was going on. Sighing, Draco shook his head. “Well… I... I made a mistake and kind of ended up… here.”

It was quiet again, before Blaise chuckled slightly, but obviously confused. “That is too short an explanation. Pans, what do you mean, he’s not ‘our Draco’?”

“He made a wish upon a star to get a second chance at life and… here he was. Dating Harry, having great friends… “ Pansy explained, but didn’t come far, as Gregory interrupted her.

“For Salazar’s sake, Draco! Don’t you know not to mess with stars and genies and fairies?!”

Draco rolled his eyes. “How come all you know about that?! I never heard anything about… stuff like that!”

Theodore seemed almost furious, though there was a light twinkle in his eyes. “Didn’t your parents tell you about the Secret Society of Wizards and Witches? Or for short: SSWW?”

“Stop it, Nott. You’re making shit up!” Blaise smirked.

Pansy quickly decided to explain to him why wizards and witches shouldn’t wish for something if they met fairies. “The story goes like this, Draco: a few hundred years back, there was a magical war. Every species was at war with the others and wizards were fighting Muggles. Apparently, we helped the fairies win their war and everything else seized. To repay us, every wish we make will come true. You get one wish during your life, where you can wish for whatever you want and you’ll get it no consequences, nothing.”

“Well, except if you ask for being the best at robbing banks. Even though you are the best, the Muggle police will be looking for you.” Gregory interrupted her once again, which earned him an evil glare from his friend.

She continued after having started him down for a few more seconds. “But for example if you wish for a good car, you’ll get it.”

Once again, a pregnant pause occupied the space around them, while Blaise and Theodore drank their beer.

“So… I basically just made a huge mistake?” Draco asked and sighed.

Everyone at the table answered almost like once voice. “Yes.”

“What now?”

Pansy was the first to speak up. “We need to figure out how to get you back? Theoretically, we could wait outside until another shooting star appears and someone of us can wish for you to go home again, but that seems a little… too far.”

Theodore agreed. “It could be our last effort.”

Nodding, Pansy held up three fingers and explained their plan. “Step one: Find out everything there is about wishing upon a star or making wishes towards a fairy. Step two: Try to find a spell that will destroy the wish. Step three: Get Draco home.”

“Good plan!” Blaise and Theodore answered at the same time, while Gregory nodded and caught the eye of the waiter again.

“Let’s just hope, it works” Draco said under his breath, silently hoping that his friends would be able to help him.


	5. A helpful Figure

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would just like to thank you for your interest in this story :) and for your comments and kudos. I already have an idea where this story will go, but I need to work on the details a little more.

“Any luck?” Blaise asked when he entered Pansy’s living room, where Draco was hunched over a book on his lap. Gregory walked in behind his friend, was carrying about five new books about fairies, stars and genies.

Stretching his back, Draco yawned and sighed then. They had read through thousands of books for the past three days and he had found absolutely nothing. Somehow, Draco had lost more and more hope for his situation the more books they finished.

“I wish!” Theodore looked up from his book and shook his head. “There is absolutely nothing in here that would help us!”

Draco caught the title of the book Theodore was reading and shook his head. “Theodore, what are you reading?”

“Cinderella” Theodore answered, while Blaise groaned and Draco facepalmed, wondering why his friend would read a book like that!

Pansy, who had just entered the room with a plate of fresh fruit, rolled her eyes. She put it down in front of Draco, looking at him so that he knew he should be eating something of it. Then she turned back to their friend and shook her head. “Unbelievable, Theodore! Even I know that this is a Muggle fairy tale!”

“It does have a fairy godmother that grants wishes!” Theodore tried to make his case.

Gregory sighed. “It’s just imagination!”

Draco chuckled and bit his lips, before he decided to speak his mind. “Well, to be honest, I thought this whole wish making thing was imagination as well.”

He held his breath, hoping nobody had heard him, but Pansy had clearly done so. She smirked at him and raised her eyebrows. “That’s because nobody told you the truth, darling.”

“Yes, I know, I know!” He rolled his eyes and laid his head on the headrest, looking up at the ceiling. “I was stupid, now I’m not anymore.” Draco stared at the small black spot in the wooden ceiling, remembering how bad his relationship had been to his friends in his other life.

Did he actually want to go back? Here he had so much more! His friends still liked him. He had a boyfriend that loved him. They seemed to have a plan for the future. Why would he even want to get back to his other life?! He had nothing there! His friends hated him, he had no relationship and no job. He was about to lose his apartment and live on the streets again…

Before Draco could fall into another depressive phase, Blaise smirked at Pansy and showed her a book. “Well, I found something, but it’s about genies.”

He was quiet again, which made Pansy frown. “What is it?” She glared at him, when he was apparently not quick enough to answer her. “Do we actually have to pull out every word out of you?”

Smirking slightly, Draco turned his attention back to his friends. Blaise held up his hands in surrender. “No, no, sorry, I was just thinking. You see, the problem is… A genie grants you three wishes, all of those count as one wish, so you could just tell him or her that you don’t want your first wish, which is the your second wish.”

Draco scoffed and grabbed a kiwi. “Good think I was faced with a genie then.” He rolled his eyes.

Pansy shook her head. “Stop being sarcastic, Draco.”

“Okay, let’s just think about it… What if we find nothing?” Draco looked around in their group. Everyone stopped what they were doing and stared back at him, probably trying to find out whether or not he was about to freak out over this.

During the pregnant pause that was currently destroying their almost cozy atmosphere. Draco caught Pansy and Theodore look at each other as if they were hiding some information from him.

“What?” he asked rather sharply. He needed to get some more information, no matter how inconvenient or hurtful they were.

Theodore sighed and placed the Muggle fairy tale book on the small table, sitting back in his chair. “Well… the problem is, we don’t know! No one ever wished for another chance at life by accident!”

“What are your theories?!” Draco frowned.

A pause was once again in the air. Draco now turned to Pansy and opened his mouth, about to ask her something, when she held up her hand. “There are a few theories. None of them would be helpful right now.”

“I want to know! If you don’t tell me, I’ll go and get these books myself.” Draco was about to stand up, when Blaise grabbed his wrist and made him sit down again.

Apparently, he knew some things as well. Draco frowned at his friends, when he decided to let him in on some secrets. “The most prominent theory is that because you don’t belong here, you will slowly fade away.”

“Blaise!” Pansy looked furious.

“What?! He wanted to know!”

Fading away? Well, that was definitely a motivator in going back to his original life and time line. Even though the more time he spent here, the more he actually didn’t want to leave.

Draco sighed and rubbed his forehead. “So… I will never exist anymore?”

Gregory nodded. “Basically, yes. The theory goes that anything that doesn’t belong to the time will eventually be erased from existence.”

“How long?” Draco hated the fearful tone, his voice had adapted. Yes, he didn’t want to fade away, but he actually wanted to sound confident that he wasn’t scared of something like that.

“No one knows. Some theories say it’s immediately and I do believe we debunked those. Others say it’s over time. So, maybe you’ll lose a finger first, then a toe and eventually an eye and so on” Theodore explained, shrugging his shoulders.

“Nothing of all of this has to happen, Draco!” Honestly, Draco was glad Pansy tried to calm him down, but he didn’t really like the idea of all of this. 

Nodding for a second, Draco sighed again. “Yes, but theories are better than not knowing. Are there any more?”

Well… he was getting sick of all those pauses in their discussion. His four friends looked at the others, silently trying to figure out whether or not they should say something. Draco was wondering if they knew that he could actually see them.

Finally, Pansy decided to speak up again. “There are a thousand different theories, Draco. The other that’s also rather high in what people believe is that the time lines want to be normal again, so there might be ruptures all over the world and some people might be disappearing, or able to walk through the cracks of reality and end up here.”

Raising his eyebrows, Draco shook his head. Crack of reality? What kind of a theory was that? “Why would people be disappearing?”

Apparently, everyone in this time line knew about the different theories, since now Theodore was talking about the same theory. “Because, you being here means that there are too many people here. It – whatever ‘it’ is – wants everything back to normal. So, it will just take the first person and transport them to the other time line.”

“You said that people could walk through the… cracks of reality?” Draco asked, not really sure where to go from there. As soon as Pansy nodded, he could think further. “Why can’t I just wait for that to happen and... go back through it?”

“Because it is a theory, Draco!” Blaise sighed and placed his book on the small table as well.

Gregory nodded. “No theories are actually real!”

“So, back to the books, it is?” Draco asked and rolled his eyes as soon as everyone nodded.

They were quiet for a good while, where everyone was trying to focus on their books and Draco wasn’t quite sure what to do or where to go from here. Suddenly, Pansy closed her book, looking rather frustrated, but apparently struck by an amazing thought.

“I have a very bad but genius idea.”

“Which is?” Gregory, who had been frowning at his book, looked rather relieved to stop reading.

Pansy smirked. “We could recruit someone who has spent their entire life reading through books to help us!”

The boys were quiet, until Draco rolled his eyes, almost about to tell Pansy to stop trying to make things look like a movie.

“Who, Pansy?” he asked.

“Hermione Granger-Weasley!”

“No!” He shook his head.

Pansy frowned at him. “Draco, if you’re still that idiot that thinks she’s a mudblood, I will have to curse you!”

Draco couldn’t stop himself from smirking, but cleared his throat to answer his best friend’s question. Well, not really a question, but… threat. “I’m not… That’s not why I don’t want her here! She’s Potter’s best friend! If she knows, he’ll find out!”

Theodore raised his eyebrows. “Why is that a bad thing?” He looked over to Gregory and then back to Draco. “He’s an Auror, almost Head Auror! He could be helpful as well!”

“I don’t want him to know!” Draco bit his lower lip. Why did he not want Potter to find out? Theodore was right. The Head Auror could definitely be helpful! But somehow, Draco wasn’t able to tell him to truth.

There was another question in his thoughts: Would Potter even believe him?

“Okay, okay Draco” Pansy held up her hands in surrender. “But I can tell you that Hermione would never tell him something we don’t want him to know. Last year, I recruited her to get him the most perfect birthday present and she kept her mouth shut. Until today.”

Once again, everyone in the room looked at him. It was a little annoying, but he knew it was his own decision. He was the one that wasn’t in his normal life. Everyone else was at the point in their life that they wanted (or... already were whatever it was).

Blaise smiled at him “With her help, we could do so much more!”

“Pansy and Blaise are right, Draco! She would know where to look and she would also know which books are fairy tales” Gregory said, looking pointedly at Theodore, who had the decency to look slightly ashamed.

Draco sighed and turned to Pansy. “Are you sure we can trust her with that?”

“One hundred percent!”

“Alright, let’s do it.”

For the following two days, everyone was reading more books and trying to find as much information as possible. Draco was also checking the daily routine of the Golden Boy. If they had been dating for the past four years and living together for the last two or three months, he had to know as much about him as possible.

What he had found out until now was that Potter woke up rather early, had a shower and made breakfast for the two of them. Apparently, he was always late for work, but no one had complained until now. Well, it was a little hard to complain against a hero that saved everyone.

Potter was then gone for almost the whole day until he would be back for dinner and spend the evening in front of the TV, cuddling with Draco (the more time he spent in this time, to more he was actually looking forward to those evenings) or silently reading a book himself.

Two days after Pansy had asked Granger to be a part of their research team, they met again. This time in Blaise’s apartment. He had never been the person to decorate, so his home was very functional – not that Draco would have been annoyed by it.

Granger walked in behind Pansy and smiled at everyone. “Hey guys, hello Draco! You did seem distracted last time you visited.”

Draco nodded sheepishly. “Please tell me you didn’t tell anyone!”

Granger chuckled. “I’m working on running the Ministry, Draco. I’m not the person to tell secrets.” She showed the books she had brought.

“What’s that?” Theodore frowned at them.

“Old books. Apparently, things like that had happened quite a lot a few years ago, that’s before the Ministry put up some sort of magical… barrier. I don’t really understand it myself.” She placed the books on the small table in front of the couch.

Gregory frowned and shook his head. “Wait… so we couldn’t even try and do it? The Ministry wouldn’t allow it?”

Granger sighed and nodded.

Draco rubbed his temples and leaned at the couch, since he was sitting on the floor. “Then how the hell did I get here?!” His frustration was shining through the statement, but he didn’t much care. If he showed that he was frustrated, maybe somehow it would go faster?

“Maybe in your time line the Ministry didn’t do that?” Pansy suggested.

Granger frowned. “Well, you were a Ministry worker by that time, right?” Draco nodded and she continued. “You see, Ministry workers theoretically could travel through time lines. But no one does it, because… well, it just gets complicated. Which we all know now.”

“So, what you’re telling me is that because I was working for the Ministry, I was granted a wish that threw me into a new time line?” Draco frowned and shook his head. This was getting more and more complicated by the minute.

The Gryffindor nodded. “Pretty much, yes.”

Sighing, Draco looked back at all the books on the table. “Okay. Any chance for me to get back?”

Granger shrugged her shoulders. “Not really. The theory states that you need to get another Ministry worker to make a wish. I mean, I would do it, but you need to draw their blood as a sacrifice.” She hesitated. “And we don’t really know whether or not this theory is actually real. I’d rather not go through a sacrifice, since I’m awaiting a baby.”

“Okay, so not happening!” Draco stated and bit his lower lip. Well, it looked like in the end, Potter had to be told. However, may not now. Maybe they could keep up the charade for a few more days or weeks.

The Gryffindor smiled at all of them. “Give me a few more days to read through the Ministry library. They keep books there that are not available for the public. Maybe I’ll find something there.”

The meeting ended shortly after that and Draco decided to walk home. The dark grey sky was ready to make it rain, even though the rain apparently wasn’t ready to leave the comfort of the clouds. People upon people walked by Draco as he made his way through Muggle London, hoping that there was a solution with which he could be living.

Once he entered Grimmauld Place, the rain started pouring and Draco quickly closed the door. He placed his shoes by the entrance and turned around to be faced with Potter. He was leaning at the door frame towards the living room and smiled at him.

“Hey love, where have you been?”

Draco smiled lightly. “I met with Pansy, Theodore, Gregory and Blaise again.”

“Anything interesting happening?” Potter grinned. “With these four, there is always something happening, right?”

Draco grinned. Potter did know his friends very well. On the other hand… The Gold Trio could have the same reputation, if Draco was honest. “Not really. I do have to pay twenty galleons for a lost Quidditch bet.” Draco rolled his eyes.

Potter burst out laughing and shook his head. “Oh yeah, right. Well, I’m sorry we couldn’t go to the game.”

“Why not, though?” Draco decided to test the limits.

His apparent boyfriend smiled slightly and even a little sad. What happened when the game took place? Should he even know the story? Well, Potter quickly shot down all his theories, when he chuckled. “Draco, are you okay? You weren’t feeling well that night. Maybe you’re still under the weather?”

“No, no, Po… Harry I’m fine.”

“Well, if you say that… Maybe you should stay home for a few days? Just to make sure?” Potter offered and Draco decided to agree to that. It would give him a little bit more time to find out everything he needed to know about him.


	6. Is Everything about to fall apart?

Granger, Pansy and all his friends had already have three additional meetings, since he was currently three months into his new life. None of all the ideas they’d had done anything. Pansy had even made another wish, but she had either been too late or somehow already used her one wish, which meant that Draco had to stay.

Not that he had minded. He had started to accept that his life had suddenly turned on its head. In fact, he had started to love the moments with his boyfriend and all the time he spent with his friends. He had missed them more than he would like to agree. And the moments in bed with Harry had made him realize that he actually wanted to stay alive. Either cuddling with the Savior or doing nasty stuff under the cover. Nothing was better!

However, a few weeks ago, Draco had started to get this sudden urge to tell Potter everything. He felt as if he had been lying to the man he had apparently married. And it felt worse and worse, the longer he had trying to hide it.

And that Saturday, where Harry had finally had a free day, Pansy had come over. She had in fact decided to help Draco explaining everything to Potter. Draco was incredibly anxious and was about to freak out, when the fire place lit up and his best friend walked out and greeted the Gryffindor.

Draco had to admit that now that he was looking at his husband once again, he looked so freaking handsome! How had he never seen it before?! How had he not even in his other lie realized that? Well, in his actual life, Potter was hiding in his office more often than not.

Potter noticed Pansy and gave her a hug and a kiss on her cheek. “Hey Pans. How is it going?”

“Good, good. You know what I learned today? You were Paul’s accomplice in my marriage proposal!”

Potter laughed and winked at her. “I was. Who do you think hid the ring for him? You would have found it in seconds if he would have hidden it in your apartment!”

Grinning Pansy shrugged her shoulders. “Paul would have probably hidden it in the book case.” She smirked at Draco’s… boyfriend.

“I’m actually here to help Draco with something, right?”She looked at Draco, who bit his lower lip and looked at the floor. “You need to tell the truth!” With that, she looked at him meaningfully, while Potter frowned and stopped eating a piece of cake. 

When she walked over and sat down next to Draco, looking at him intently, he sighed. Potter looked at him with narrowed eyes and clearly not understanding what was going on. “Why are you lying to me?” he asked and Draco could hear a little disappointment in his voice.

He rolled his eyes. “I’m not lying. I’m just… not telling you what happened to me.” Potter stayed quiet, still frowning. That probably meant he should continue. And so he told him, that a few months he had lived a totally different life and that now he was here, but he had no memory of anything, especially their relationship.

“So it’s all a lie?” Potter asked and frowned.

Draco didn’t know what to say. He wanted to say something, when his boyfriend… or whatever got up and stopped him from talking with a simple hand gesture. “I need to think about this.” He got up, placed the cake on the floor and walked out.

Pansy rubbed Draco’s back and smiled at him a little pitying. “That went better than expected, right?”

“Better than expected? Potter just walked out on me! He thinks I’ve been lying to him for the past three months! I should have told him so much earlier!”

His best friend smiled softly and shrugged her shoulders. “Yes, okay. That is true. You should have told him a few weeks earlier…”

Draco glared at his best friend. “Thank you Pansy.” He made sure she realized the heavy sarcasm in his voice. She only laughed and shrugged her shoulders.

“Harry will be okay. He just needs a few more minutes to think about all of this bullshit. After then we can take him into our group to figure out how to get you home.”

Draco sighed again. Did he even want to go home?! That was the question he should be answering before he could actually get home. Honestly… It was perfect here. Why the hell would he want to go back to the place where everyone hated him?!

*

That was a mistake. Telling Potter the truth. Somehow something deep inside him had told Draco to be honest – well, actually it had been Pansy, but he still had this feeling. And now, Potter was hiding in his office and Pansy had left the house after about two hours. Draco wasn’t mad at her for that.

It was way past eleven o’clock, once he finally walked out. Crossing his arms over his chest, he leaned at the door frame and narrowed his eyes, looking at Draco. “Why are you still awake?”

Draco bit his lip and shrugged his shoulders. “I honestly don’t know what to do. I feel as if I made a mistake by telling you what’s happened with me. And I can’t figure out why. So, I’m hoping that if I stay awake… I’ll find out it was all just a dream.”

“It’s not a dream.” Potter sighed and finally entered the room, sitting down on the couch opposite of Draco. “Things like that happen. That’s why wizards are scared of things that can grant wishes. Have you honestly never heard of any of this?”

Shaking his head, Draco looked at the floor. He had never heard of any of this until a few weeks ago. Apparently, everyone else knew about it, but him. “I’m really sorry.”

When Potter didn’t answer, Draco looked up and saw the Golden Boy frowning. Only once he had looked up, did he say something. “What for?”

“For… disappointing you.”

Potter smiled slightly. “Well, Draco. There’s one thing that you can’t do and which I have told you for a few years now… However, since you can’t remember, I’ll tell you again: You will never disappoint me. It’s impossible.”

Draco rolled his eyes. “I disappoint everyone.”

“Maybe” Potter smirked. “But I don’t care, because I love…” he suddenly stopped and sighed. “Well, sorry about that. It must all be too much for now. But… I love you.”

There was a pregnant pause, while Draco fought with his inner voice. “This is kind of awkward” he finally said and looked down at the floor again. Potter sighed once again.

“Just slightly.”

Draco looked up and caught Potter smirking, before he offered him his hand. “Let’s go to bed. Even though I would offer you to take another bedroom, I have to be a little selfish right now.”

“Selfish?” Draco frowned.

Potter nodded and looked at his empty hand, so that Draco finally put his own hand into his. It was smoother than he would have thought and followed him up the stairs, while the Gryffindor explained to him what he meant.

“You see, I can’t sleep alone. I get very bad nightmares so I’d appreciate it if you could stay with me. If you don’t want to sleep in the same bed as I do… You can go once I fell asleep…”

“No, its… it’s fine” Draco shook his head. “I mean, I have been sleeping in your bed for the past three months” he added sheepishly to which Potter chuckled and rolled his eyes.


	7. Some Things don't add up

“Pansy, I need to find Draco.”

The Slytherin narrowed her eyes and looked at Draco, as if he had lost his mind. “_You_ are Draco. What are you even talking about?!”

Sighing, Draco sat down at her kitchen table. He had never been to Pansy’s house in his other life. Too self-absorbed by his own drama, he had never even thought about visiting his childhood’s best friend. It was easy to see why their relationship crumbled after he had complained to her another time…

In fact, Pansy’s home was absolutely beautiful. The walls were white with a shimmer of gold and silvery blue. It was bright, the big windows leading into the garden which was apparently Paul’s pastime and passion. It just seemed to be perfect.

Concentrating back on the issue at hand, Draco took another sip of tea, before answering Pansy’s question. “Okay, this is going to be a little bit confusing, so I’m calling your actual Draco… Draco A.”

“So, you’re Draco B?” Pansy asked and frowned a little.

Nodding, he agreed with her assessment. “When I made this wish and woke up… here, there was another man already supposed to be here in the place I am currently occupying.”

“Draco B.” Pansy answered, before shaking her head. “No, wait. Draco A.”

Once again, Draco nodded and smiled a little. “However, now I am in his place. And my question is: Where is Draco A? The original one!”

The other Slytherin in this room frowned and shrugged her shoulders. She looked into her cup and lost in thoughts, took a sip of the herbal tea. “That is a good question.”

Apparently though, she hadn’t any idea either. So the pair traveled to Granger’s home, unknowingly entering in the middle of a small crisis. Granger opened the door, hair looking as if she hadn’t seen a mirror in ten days (it reminded Draco of Potter and he didn’t really like what it did to him), her eyes were half closed and in the back they heard a baby cry. Her daughter was now one month old and apparently crying a lot.

“Hey guys” she greeted them and welcomed them in, before walking into another room, which looked like a nursery.

Pansy looked at Draco, clearly wondering if it was a mistake to come here, but finally it seemed as if the crying stopped.

Granger walked out of the room, sighing and smiled at them. “Sorry about that, guys. She got sick a few days ago and there’s nothing I can do. With young babies, you shouldn’t try and help them with magic…”

Nodding, Pansy grabbed a piece of paper, writing something down. “My parents used to go to this pediatrician; he’s a wizard and knows a few things about how to help babies and children through their maladies.”

The two women hugged and Granger looked so much better than before. She offered them tea and finally, they started discussing the problem with Draco A. Granger was quiet for some time, lost in thoughts and Draco wasn’t sure whether or not he should just propose some ideas. A few moments later, she looked at him frowning.

“What if Draco… A and you just simply changed places?”

Draco widened his eyes. “I hope not. My life was miserable, if he has to live there…”

He thought of all his friends that had abandoned him and the fact that he basically lived in a small flat that he could no longer afford. If Draco A actually got sent there… he could definitely not survive there. Pansy had been angry with him for a while now and all the others wouldn’t answer his floo calls anymore…

Granger sighed and shrugged her shoulders. “Then I sadly don’t know what else could be happening.”

Pansy suddenly sat up straight and frowned. She seemed to have an idea, though judging by the look on her face, Draco wasn’t sure if it was helpful. “What if Draco… A somehow got thrown into a black hole or something?”

So… not helpful.

“Okay, now you’re just making jokes” Granger rolled her eyes, though couldn’t stop herself from smirking.

Pansy shook her head. “No, I mean it! Draco wished upon a star. It’s the universe that granted him this wish, maybe it just somehow transported…”

“Pansy, come on. There’s no such thing as people being thrown into wide space because someone made a wish upon a star.”

Draco frowned and looked at his tea, before speaking himself. “Well, up until a few months ago, I also believed that there was no such thing as a wish upon a star… or whatever else can grant you a wish.”

“Okay, Draco, but that’s just because your parents didn’t believe such things could be real and you now paid the price.” Pansy seemed to be a little bit pissed off.

Holding his hands up in defeat, Draco could calm her down a little. He then turned to Granger and frowned slightly. “Do you think Draco A could still be around here?”

The Gryffindor scratched her forehead thoughtfully. “Well, there’s a machine somehow in the middle of the Ministry which they finished just a few days ago. It’s supposed to track people’s DNA. Maybe with the help of this machine… we could see if it picks up two strings of your DNA?”

“Sounds good.”

“The only problem is, Hermione” Pansy said looking at Granger sternly. “None of us are actually allowed into the middle of the Ministry. You’re on family leave, I’m not in the Ministry and Draco got fired a few months back.”

“Harry’s going to hire me as his secretary. I’m supposed to start tomorrow” Draco offered. It had taken a lot of convincing from Potter so the Minister would allow Draco back into the Ministry. However, apparently, their Golden Boy had a lot of power and finally got him hired as his secretary. Even though Draco would deny it in front of everyone, he was really happy that it had worked and he had gotten another job.

Granger’s face lit up. “Perfect!”

“Right, now you can get all of us in and we can go look at it and test it.” Pansy grinned.

Draco frowned slightly and shook his head. “I don’t think I follow what you guys are telling me.”

The Gryffindor in their midst chuckled. “Since you can get into the Ministry after tomorrow, you can let all of us into the secure area and I can lead you to the place where this stupid machinery’s standing.”

Draco thought for a second, but decided that it was probably the best option to find Draco A. If he was still around in this weird... place. The machine should also work to look into the nothingness of space - if Pansy's theory was correct. “Maybe that’s even going to work…”

“Of course it will! Hermione’s brilliant!” Pansy laughed and her compliment made Granger blush a little. Draco smirked, when she started to talk rather quickly, clearly trying not to let her embarrassment show.

“Okay, we meet in five days; Draco’s going to tell Harry he has to work late, figuring out everything, you know…” Hermione already started planning. “And when Harry’s gone, you’re helping us inside and we look for another string of DNA.”

Draco bit his lower lips, before confessing his secret angst. “I don’t know if I want there to be another one or if I want Harry to be happy with the original Draco.”

“Don’t worry about that, Drake!” Pansy smiled.

Even Granger patted his shoulder. “We’ll figure it out when the time comes. Together.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the rather short chapter. I have a lot goin on right now.
> 
> Next chapter on Saturday (or Sunday) next week :)  
And I love the title of this chapter already: Ministry Heist (or something along the lines of that)


	8. The Heist into the Ministry’s Secure Area

Draco had always thought that Potter’s office had a lot of colors, fluffy carpets and just… looked nice and welcoming. This office didn’t. It had grey walls, a small worn out green carpet under the desk and the wooden office desk had probably been used for too many years and should have gone into pension with its former owner. Or the owner before him.

Potter had, after a lot of waiting and even weirder discussions with the Minister, finally gotten the confirmation that he would be getting the title of Head Auror and he had now changed his office. The public would be informed after Potter had moved into his office for real and once Draco had been officially accepted by the people working here.

“So welcome to my office” Potter stated and looked around as if he wasn’t sure himself if he liked it or not.

“It’s so small!” Draco grinned and followed Potter’s gaze.

A voice behind them made Draco jump slightly and once he turned around he saw a middle aged man, black suit, dark blue tie, sitting at a small desk at the entrance already. He was very styled and everything on him was on point. It reminded Draco of a younger him. Also, Draco was sure that this man was a women magnet (but what did he know about that?).

“That’s what she said!” The man answered and laughed loudly.

Potter sighed and rolled his eyes, before he turned to Draco. “Draco, this is Peter” he introduced the other man slightly annoyed. “As you might’ve guessed, he really enjoys Muggle jokes.”

“Not the good ones?” Draco whispered to Potter, who in turn shook his head.

When Draco turned back to Potter’s secretary, he had gotten up and walked over to them, as if he wanted to establish dominance through it. It didn’t work – on neither of them. “So, you’re the new guy?” Peter asked and held out a hand.

Somehow, Draco really wanted to hex it off, but he decided to play it cool and nodded. “Yeah, I’m happy to work here.” He ignored the hand and Peter seemed to understand rather quickly, putting it back in his pocket.

“Oh, believe me, you’d be the only one!” Peter sighed dramatically and slurped back hind his desk. Draco frowned and saw how Potter shook his head.

In fact, Potter had a rather unapologetic look on his face. “Peter, we don’t need your pessimism here, please.”

The other man nodded and presented both of them with an extremely fake smile and nodded enthusiastically. “Sure thing, boss.”

“I’ll show you around here, Draco.” Potter turned around and Draco followed suit, thankful that he could leave Peter behind. He didn’t really like him anyway.

“Thanks” Draco answered and followed Potter through the glass door into his actual office (which was still just the same as Draco had seen it initially).

Draco sat down on the opposite side of Potter and smiled. The great Savior was fully concentrated on looking for something and finally pulled a parchment out of his drawers. Meanwhile, Draco had enough time to watch his husband closely. There was something cute about him, when he was thinking very hard. His eyebrows would narrow but the left one was slightly higher than the other one and Draco had to admit that he liked this very much.

“So, what exactly is my job?” he finally asked, once Potter had placed the parchment to the side.

Potter smiled and nodded. “Right, I have a lot of paperwork and Peter doesn’t like to do that. He keeps my dates in check and if someone wants to talk to me, he does all those things. However, I do need someone who does the normal paperwork. Check through my notes and writes simple statements.” Potter was quiet for a while. “I feel a little stupid for not having told you this before.”

Draco snickered and winked at him. “No, don’t worry. It’s okay. I do appreciate having a job once again. And by the way, I’m okay with all of this.”

“Perfect!” Potter smiled broadly and pointed to the desk outside on the opposite wall of Peter. There actually was a desk there and it looked newer than the one Potter was sitting at right now. “That would be your desk.”

Draco raised his eyebrows and turned back to his husband. “Did you swap the desks?”

“What? No!” Potter immediately answered, though his answer was way too quick for it to be an actual unplanned answer. “Whatever, if you’re done with the first report you can show it to me and I’ll have a look at it if it’s good to go. After that, I trust you can do your work independently. If you have question, you are very welcome to come in here.”

Smirking, Draco got up, shook his head and walked outside to take his new post. There were already a few reports and a stack of other notes from Potter to different apartments and Aurors. Draco quickly looked through all of them and placed them by priority, before starting to write the very first report.

*

“We shouldn’t be here.”

Draco looked around. The Ministry was dark. Somehow scary. During the day, there were so many people here that the huge building looked small. But now, during the night… It was terrifying to hear the echo of their steps.

Granger nodded silently. With their goal in mind, they quickly made their way through the entrance of the Ministry. Not a lot of people were there and the two who were there already knew Granger. And well, Draco could also just show them around.

Well after midnight…

Dark corridor after dark corridor, they decided not to chance it and take the elevator, which meant that they had a lot of walking to do. Draco had tried to keep up with all the turns and direction changes, but after they had turned left (or right) for what felt like the five hundredth time, he gave up. Their only hope was that they could get out of the secure place once they started up the machine.

Before they could enter the lowest hallway, which was restricted to everyone but the highest Ministry workers (and everyone with a permit), a noise sounded. The three of them stopped dead in their tracks, looking around.

Draco just wanted to say something, when he turned to Pansy, when Granger quickly put a finger up to her mouth and cast a spell.

“Quiet!” she whispered and looked down the hallway.

When Draco turned to look at it, he saw a shadowy figure walking closer. Frozen with fear and the thought of what would happen if they were caught by anyone, Draco stood still. As the figure staggered closer, he suddenly recognized the person there. Peter. What was he doing here?

Peter snuck closer and was suddenly standing in front of the three of them. However, he apparently wasn’t able to see them. Draco turned slowly to face Granger who just as slowly shook her head. There was something that looked like fear in her eyes, but Draco wasn’t sure if he had seen it correctly.

“Weird things, man” Peter muttered and sighed. He snuck away again, not without turning around again for one last time.

Draco exhaled slowly, just now feeling how tense he had gotten.

When they finally continued, Draco heard Pansy say something and he turned around to look at his best friend. “What was all that about?” Pansy asked and turned to face Granger.

“That was Potter’s other employee and he…”

“Not that, we all know who Idiot-Peter is” Pansy interrupted Draco and turned back to face Granger. Draco frowned slightly, before he remembered the fear-stricken eyes of Potter’s best friend. “What happened to you?”

Granger shook her head and shook her head. “I’d rather not talk about it. I thought I was over it.” She quickened her steps and they were soon walking rather briskly through the remaining halls to the very end.

At the end of the hallway, there was a plain wooden door. Granger opened it rather easily and they all walked through, only to end up in a round room with grey tiles around the walls. In the very middle was a weird looking object that was shaped like something Muggles used to look at stars (which he had seen in a movie and went to research what that object was).

“It’s still here” Granger stated and she smiled weakly. She then turned to Draco and held out her hands. “Give me a hair, we’ll feed it to Clara and off we go.”

“Clara?” Pansy asked and grinned.

Granger rolled her eyes. “It’s what I called this thing. I honestly have to tell you that I forgot the official name, since most people have started to call it Clara.”

Pansy and Granger chuckled, while Draco took a hair and gave it to the Gryffindor. A few seconds later, the machine was powering up and a visual globe appeared out of thin air.

The Gryffindor pointed to it and turned back to Draco. “This will help us determine where you are. Theoretically, it should say you’re in the Ministry, since…” she smiled and pointed at the floor Draco was standing on. “If there’s another Draco Malfoy around on this Earth, it will show us which country and then where exactly.” She smiled once again. “Ready?”

Exhaling, Draco shook his head. “Definitely not. But let’s do this anyway. We came this far, we should do it.”

“That’s the spirit” Pansy smiled at him and walked over to put her arm around his shoulders.

It took the machine longer than Draco would have liked it, but it soon found a match and pinpointed it to London. Granger turned around and smiled at him, but before she could say something, the machine zoomed into London and stood still with a ‘ping’ indicating that it was done.

Draco opened his eyes wide and stood there silently debating whether the machine was working right or actually wrong. He felt Pansy take away her arm and walking closer to the globe. Granger, clearly surprised by their actions, frowned and turned around.

There were two results. One in the Ministry, which was obviously him, and one at Grimmauld Place 12.

“That’s impossible, right?” Pansy asked and narrowed her eyes. “I mean, I was there before and there really wasn’t another Draco there. I would have seen him!”

Draco frowned. “Maybe it’s because I did kind of leave my DNA there?”

“No” Granger shook her head. “It only tracks body mass DNAs, and this shows that there are two versions of you on this planet.”

She turned back to the machine and put in some numbers. Clara zoomed closer towards Grimmauld Place and Draco frowned at the sight of that. “Is that the garden?”

Pansy and Granger agreed, both of them unsure of what they were supposed to do now. What did all of this mean? Potter didn’t look like someone who would keep his original Draco imprisoned… and Granger would certainly know that, right?

“Let’s go back to Grimmauld Place and look in the garden, maybe we’ll see something” Draco suggested.

“Harry’s home, Draco. We can’t just go ahead and search through the garden!” Pansy objected.

Granger was quietly thinking and finally took out her wand. She conjured a Patronus and looked at the blue otter. “Hey Ron, we’re thinking about doing a ladies night and Draco wanted to join us. Would you mind spending some time with Harry? I think he needs some time with his best mate, right? I heard they reopened your favorite pub again. Don’t wait up for me and my parents already agreed to keeping Rose for another night.”

The otter nodded and was gone quickly. Granger turned around, when Pansy laughed and clapped her hands. “You are such a Slytherin, Hermione! I love it!”

Draco chuckled and shook his head. Granger had a deeply red head and exhaled loudly. “Let’s get out of here” she said while shutting down Clara. “I’m sure that as soon as we’re out of here, Ron has kidnapped Harry and we have a few hours looking through his garden.”

Pansy smirked and mockingly bowed to her. “Show the way, your highness.”


	9. One Lie to top them All

Granger had been right: Potter was gone (probably with Weasley in their favorite pub) and Grimmauld Place was as empty as could be. The group, still consisting of Pansy, Granger and Draco, walked into the garden and stood still for a second.

“So what’s the best way to find Draco A?” Pansy asked.

Sighing, Draco looked over everything. “Since you guys remember Draco A from a few weeks ago, I think we should look for either a secret entrance to a prison or… a fresh gravesite.”

Granger frowned at him. “You think our Draco is dead?”

Shrugging, Draco indicated that he had no idea what he was thinking, but that they should probably still be looking for both things.

Pansy chuckled after a few seconds and turned to Granger. “I think it’s weird that you ask Draco whether or not Draco A is dead, but you’re fully okay with him thinking that your best mate has a prison in his garden.”

The Gryffindor rolled her eyes, but smiled softly. “It’s just that I _know_ Harry doesn’t have a prison in his garden, but I don’t think, Draco… our Draco… Draco A would be dead. I still think that he might have swapped placed with Draco B.”

For a good hour, nobody was talking, while they looked through the garden. Granger checked the flowers, Pansy worked through the food section and Draco checked around the trees. It was way past midnight, when Draco stopped dead in his tracks. He waved Pansy and Granger closer and pointed to a spot of earth in the middle of grass.

There were some lilies on top of the dirt, but also the smallest of crosses made out of simple wood inside the earth. Under the cross was a rock as big as Draco’s hand.

Granger kneeled next to it and rubbed a little dirt out of the cut in words. She started to read softly. “May you find Mercy and Acceptance in Merlin’s Presence, my Slytherin Heart.”

All of them were quiet for a while until Pansy looked at Draco and shrugged her shoulder. “Maybe Draco A wrote this, because I do remember how you always said during Hogwarts that your Slytherin heart was cold as ice.”

Nodding slightly, Draco thought that it might be true… Maybe. It was at least better than what his mind wanted to tell him.

“And Harry’s always been a bit of a sucker for all things symbolical” Pansy continued smiling at him encouragingly.

Draco suddenly noticed that Granger hadn’t said a thing and he turned to look at her, a little scared of what she might say. Out of all of them, she knew him the best.

Getting to her feet again, Granger stared at the stone on the ground. She then turned around and looked at the two Slytherins. “Today in the Ministry, something happened” she started softly. “I remembered my year on the run. It hadn’t happened for quite some time. But today, under the protective spell and with Peter suddenly so close again, almost finding us… I remembered how the Snatchers had almost caught us the first time.”

Draco was quiet; he did not dare to interrupt her. Not only because he had never heard this story, but also because he knew that he did play some kind of role in this thing.

Finally, after a very pregnant pause, Granger continued. “We had been tired, food was sparse and Ron was wounded through Voldemort’s Horcrux. And I had to build a magical barrier so that the people looking for us couldn’t find us. I was almost done, when the Snatchers game by. They almost realized that we were there, because my magic hadn’t been working properly through all of those ordeals.”

She looked back at the stone and bit her lip. Finally, Pansy was the one who interrupted her train of thoughts.

“Hermione, I do understand why you want to tell this to someone, but what does this have to do with Draco’s heart?”

Granger shook her head. “This is Harry’s magic. Can’t you feel how sad it is?”

For the first time since Draco had lived here, he concentrated on Potter’s magic. In fact, it was extremely sad. It felt as if his whole world had started to crumble and there was nothing he could do to prevent his.

Frowning slightly, Draco turned to Potter’s best friend. “What does that mean?”

Pansy suddenly held her breath and shook her head. “No!”

Before Draco could ask any of the women something, Granger turned to the gravesite and put some kind of invisible spell over it. The dirt lifted and the lilies turned into door knobs. With shaking hands, Draco pulled it open to reveal an underground burial site.

There were five steps into the underground. He carefully walked down, the women following him and they suddenly stood in front of a shrine. Pictures upon pictures of the happy couple – Potter and Draco.

“What’s going on?” Draco asked and turned to look at Granger, when he saw behind her a huge coffin with a few hundred spells around it, leading the way was a stasis charm.

Walking closer, he looked into it and saw himself. Pansy stepped next to him and inhaled loudly. A second later, Granger stood on the other side of him, staring at everything. All three of them were missing words to say something.

Suddenly, there was a shimmer of light yellow magic in the air and it seemed to change the entire magical surroundings. Everyone looked around, but Draco couldn’t find the reason to this happening. That was until ten seconds later the door opened again and a seemingly drunk Potter walked in.

Draco wanted to jump away and hide somewhere, when he realized that his feet were apparently glued to the floor. He looked up at Granger, wanting her to help, but she looked at the floor and sighed.

“It’s Ministry approved. There’s no way to get out of this unless the original wizard does this – or Ministry approved Curse Breakers” she quickly whispered back.

Well, time to admit defeat, right? Potter walked down the five steps, in his hands a Sober-up Potion, and he looked at the three intruders. Sighing, he swallowed the entire potion, cast a wandless spell and Draco felt his feet under his own control again.

Pansy was the first to talk to him. “Potter, what’s going on?! What have you done to Draco?!” She looked over to Draco, but turned to Potter and pointed to the coffin. “To _this_ Draco.”

Potter clenched his fist and the vial shuttered. A few drops of blood spattered onto the floor and when Draco looked back at the Gryffindor, there were tears in his eyes. “I didn’t do this.”

Granger walked forwards, holding out her hands, but Potter backed away, clearly not interested in any friendly comfort. That was new to Draco. He had always thought that Potter needed this to survive.

“Even though I tried to keep his hopes up after he lost the job in the Ministry, he couldn’t handle it anymore. So… I came home and found him…” he lost his voice and looked over to the coffin, tears running down his cheeks. Apparently, the picture in his head of what had happened was destroying him.

“I killed myself?” Draco asked a little surprised. He had never thought that he would do something like that. Even when he was at his lowest, he had always decided to at least try again. Well, until he had lost his job… He hadn’t seen any way out of this…

Granger looked at him with sadness in her eyes as well. “So you knew Draco wasn’t your Draco from the beginning?”

Potter nodded and looked at the floor. There were more tears rolling down his eyes. “The next day, I came into my bedroom and Draco was there. I thought that maybe you weren’t dead that I somehow hadn’t seen something. But when I came down here…”

“I’m so sorry, Harry” Draco said quietly.

Smiling weakly at him, Potter nodded softly. “I’m also sorry, Draco, for not telling you the truth.”

Pansy shook her head. “And what about us? What about Draco’s friends?!”

Potter bit his lower lip and searched for something stable to hold on to. “I figured that if _a_ Draco was here, you guys would be okay with this. I didn’t have the strength to tell you that Draco died. In fact, nobody knew. I buried him here with the intent to keep him all to myself. And I know it’s not what normal people do, but…”

Everyone was quiet. Draco wasn’t sure whether or not Potter was going to continue speaking, so he decided not to say anything. How hard must it have been for him to live with the realization that his husband was dead, killed himself. And now there was a new version of this dead husband living with him, trying everything to pretend to be normal. As a matter of fact, he remembered the very first visit to the Weasleys, where Potter continuously saved him from having to say something he didn’t know…

_Playing chess with Weasley and he knew that something was weird: “I’m a little surprised. Usually, you’re much better.”_

_“What do you mean?” Draco had tried his hardest not to freak out. Yes, he had lived without anyone that he had somehow forgotten how to be around other people._

_However, Weasley hadn’t understood him. Or he simply thought that Draco was okay, just a little tired. Draco remembered how he had simply stated: “You’re not blocking anything. You had my queen stuck and moved the knight! You once told me that you’d never let my queen free!”_

_Draco had missed that. Normally – or rather earlier in his life – whenever he had gotten a queen stuck, he had done everything in his power to not let them free and to maybe even kill her. He had always gotten what he had wanted._

_And then, there was this sudden backup from Potter, which he remembered bright as day. “Draco went through a lot this week, Ron. You need to give him some slack.” The Gryffindor had rolled his eyes and grinned, when Weasley had shook his head._

“I’m sorry for not telling you” Harry sighed, turned around and left.


	10. Shit is about to go down

Draco had stayed the rest of the night at Pansy’s, together with all of his Slytherin friends and Hermione and Ron (he finally decided to call them by their given names). They had all shared everything they knew and by the time the first light had started, they all marched to Grimmauld Place (or floo’d more likely) to talk to Harry.

They hadn’t gotten far in their discussions, when once again something weird happened. The room was suddenly fighting with itself and for a second it looked like the dirty apartment, where Draco had started a few weeks prior to now. Harry stood up, facing the weird shape with his wand in his hands, frowning at the mess. The whole ground shook and threw Draco from the couch. Theodore was next to him immediately and helped him standing up. Hermione and Ron both grabbed their wands and even Pansy, Gregory and Blaise were ready to fight anything.

What happened next, nobody could have seen coming. The thing disappeared and in its place stood Pansy. Looking from one person to the other, there were actually two Pansys standing there. The Pansy next to Draco got white as a ghost.

Harry raised his wand, frowning even more. “Identify yourself!”

“Fuck off, Potter! How did I get here, what did you do to me?!” Pansy almost spit at him, when she saw the other version of herself and frowned. “Nice Polyjuice going on here. What did you do?”

Harry shook his head. “Identify yourself” he repeated. The seven other people in this room were still holding their wands towards her, though the real Pansy was shaking slightly.

“Fine!” Pansy rolled her eyes. “Pansy Parkinson, soon to be Hall. I was in your year, Potter. Slytherin. Any other questions?”

“How did you get here?” Ron asked and narrowed his eyes.

Pansy laughed a little devilish and shrugged her shoulders. “I wanted to know this from you! And why do you have a Polyjuiced person of me here?”

“It’s not Polyjuice” the other version of Pansy finally spoke up, which made the other frown and then laugh, though not really amused. However, nice Pansy started talking again. “It’s you, Draco. You made this.”

Draco frowned at her. He made Pansy? That was a sentence he would have never thought would ever happen. “What do you mean, Pansy?”

Instead of her, Hermione started talking immediately. Somehow she had gotten an idea from what Pansy had been talking about. “I think you being here destroyed the time lines. It’s a different Universe. And somehow because you keep staying here, you’re destroying all the different time lines. I wouldn’t be surprised if other people would arrive here soon.”

“But… I have been here for over a month! How is this only happening now?” Draco asked and looked at Hermione.

Ron groaned and shook his head. “It’s because you found Draco in his grave. It destroyed your way of thinking and now you’re creating something.” He looked at Hermione for confirmation, which she gave by nodding.

Pansy B (his original, bad meaning Pansy) raised her eyebrows. “Two questions: Draco’s dead? I’m in a different time line?”

Everyone nodded and she sighed overly dramatic. “Fuck you, Draco! What the _fuck_ did you do!”

Pansy A stood in front of him protectively. “He wished upon a star, when you told him you were done with him. Which might I add wasn’t very nice of you… me.”

“Guys!” Harry stood between the two fronts that were building. “Stop arguing, we need to fix this. Who knows what will happen if we keep it like it is? Hermione?”

Hermione nodded, while Draco fought the tears. He had been so happy here and yes Harry had messed up by not telling him that the original Draco was dead. But everyone made mistakes! And he had been ready to accept Harry’s apology and move on from those depressing topics. And just like that, he had to go back? To his hated life and everything like that?!

“What were you doing, before you came here?” Hermione asked and took a small booklet out of her robes. She was always ready for everything.

Pansy B rolled her eyes. “I don’t know! I’m not writing down everything that I’m doing every second of every day!”

Draco frowned, suddenly getting a very weird idea. “Who said I was the one who did something bad? I mean, yes, I wouldn’t wish upon a star ever again or anything like that… But why would I come here of all places?”

Harry gripped his wand tighter than before and bit his lips, looking away. Draco wasn’t the only one who saw it, since almost everyone in the room, suddenly turned towards him. Ron had a look that seemed to be some kind of an aha moment.

Rubbing his temples, Harry started shaking and sat down next to Draco, closing his eyes. Hermione walked closer and kneeled in front of him. “Harry. What happened?”

“Can anybody get me home?” Pansy B asked loudly, which only earned her a glare from Pansy A and Blaise.

Draco placed his hand on Harry’s and looked at him, a little surprised that Harry seemed to be dealing with this much more than he had thought. It seemed to affect him extremely. Apparently, it wasn’t only him who had done something bad.

Harry sighed and Draco saw him trying to bite back his tears. “I… I couldn’t bear this. My Draco was gone just like that. I had been working so hard with him and I thought we had finally gotten to a point where his depression wasn’t that obvious anymore. And then he died. Just like that. I… I couldn’t… This…” Harry broke down, tears running over his cheeks and he closed his eyes, trying to get back to full sentences. “So I… I wished for Draco to be alive. And I buried him and the very next day, you’re back. And I realized that you had no knowledge of anything around here and so… I thought that maybe I made a mistake… But I…” Harry tried to suppress another sob; however, he couldn’t really manage it. “I can’t live without you. So I said nothing. It was all my mistake.”

Theodore walked closer and frowned slightly. “What do you mean by you made a wish?”

Hermione suddenly looked up at Harry and shook her head. “The Wishing Well in the Ministry. Harry, why did you do this! You know better than anybody else that those wishes never are what they seem.”

Draco frowned and turned to Harry. “Why would you do something like that?! Why would you bring me back from another version of this life?!”

Harry looked up, tears in his eyes. “Because! You were always there when I needed you! You were the one making fun of me first if all of this Savior bullshit went to my head! You were the one laughing when I would fall, but the very first one to help me up again and tell me that you still loved me. I can’t live without you! Who am I if I can’t have you in my arms?! I’m just this same old stupid Savior that saves everyone else, but was too late to save the one person that truly meant something to me. I will _always_ be the one who was too late. Too late to save you.”

Draco didn’t know what to say to that, neither did the other people around them. Well Pansy B knew, but her comment was just stupid. How could Draco ever have thought of staying around her?! How where his friends so stupid in his alternate life?

“Touching story, Potter” Pansy B said, rolling her eyes. “But does anybody here know how to get me home?”

Granger looked as if she was ready to rip her apart, when she put her hands at her waist, frowning at the other version of Pansy. “No, we don’t. We’ve been trying to send Draco home for quite some time.”

Pansy B snorted. “I’m not talking about him. For all I’m concerned, he can stay here and fucking kill himself here as well.”

“You bitch!” Pansy A was just about to jump at her spitting image, when Ron and Theodore held her back. “How can we have the same fiancé?! There’s no way Paul would want to marry someone like you!”

Pansy B rolled her eyes at Pansy A’s comment. Draco silently had to agree, especially now he wasn’t sure how Paul would ever want to spend his life with Pansy B. This version sucked.

Hermione finally seemed to have gotten an idea. “Harry, tomorrow night, we’re going back into the Ministry. Ron and I will wish something at The Wishing Well. I’ll wish for Draco to be back home, Ron wishes for Pansy B to be back in their original time lines and everything should be okay.”

Harry looked pained, but he nodded nevertheless. Pansy B rolled her eyes. “Okay, so can I go home and sleep in my bed?”

“You’re not going anywhere. I’m not letting Paul catch sight of you!” Pansy A said, still visibly angry.

“Whatever. I’ll sleep here.”


	11. Planning the Escape into another Time Line

Once again, Draco was in the Ministry at night. Oh, how he hated those secret missions. At Hogwarts, he would have loved stories like those, since they always ended pretty much in a very happy ending. Or in him torturing Harry, which was also kind of happy for him.

Right now, Harry was leading the way through some rather confusing corridors, while Pansy B walked next to her doppelganger. Both clearly loathed the other and Draco was sure that if his alternate version as alive, he would probably feel the same.

What had Draco done in his life? He had gotten kicked out of the Ministry twice, lost every other job he had ever gotten, his friends hated him and at the end of the day, he was a complete tosser. No one would ever want to spend time around him. That was clear. And it didn’t matter how much Draco wanted it to be untrue, it still stayed true.

Eventually, they ended up in a small round room with a well in the middle. The simpel stones were stacked as if a child has played with it, however, it was lit up by a charm that seemed to be showing the full moon. It actually looked very peaceful and happy.

Harry had stopped next to it and stepped back again. “This is the place where I made my wish” he explained.

Draco raised his eyebrows. This explanation was rather unnecessary. Hermione had told him to bring them to this place, so unless there were two or more of those wells around the Ministry, he shouldn’t have needed to explain something like this.

“Alright” Hermione turned to Ron who took out a penny, throwing into the well and closing his eyes. After a few seconds, he opened them again, frowning at the well.

“Something’s not working…” he commented and shook his head. He looked at his wife with narrowed eyes. “Are there any more rules which we might not have thought of?”

Hermione shrugged her shoulders. “Theoretically, you need moonlight to achieve the ability to make wishes.” She pointed to the ceiling.

Draco nodded, the moonlight thing was cared for. Something else wasn’t working. It didn’t feel right. In fact, it felt as if this well had no more magic left. He remembered something he had learned a few years ago…

“Magical artifacts which have been around since the sixteenth century have limited magical powers” he cited the book he had once been extremely interested in. “The Ministry keeps them locked up in case anything or anyone decides to do something with them…”

“Well, shit.”Pansy A sighed and rubbed her forehead. “So, what now?”

“Wait…” Pansy B raised her eyebrows looking at all of them. “Oh no! Hell no! I will _not_ be stuck in this stupid fucking world! Draco threw his life away, I moved on. I will not stay here, where nobody seems to be interested in anything we…”

“Pansy shut up” Pansy A rolled her eyes while she put her doppelganger back into place.

Hermione sighed. “Okay, so the well doesn’t work. Anybody else have some idea?”

They didn’t get to the idea, as a sudden alarm sounded through the empty halls of the Ministry. Harry, Hermione and Ron looked up in unease. Draco frowned. Had they been found out? What would happen to them now?

Hermione groaned and rubbed her forehead. “I swear, if any additional people will appear, we need to go to the Minister and have him know what’s been going on under his nose.”

“I’m pretty sure he already knows” Harry sighed and waved the people to go outside the small room.

They hurried along the halls, ending up right in front of Harry’s office. Suddenly, the Minister stood in front of them. Hermione and Pansy A stepped in front of Pansy B, clearly unwilling to let Kingsley know what was going on.

“There is some mysterious magic happening in Bond Street” he informed them. “I need you to check it out as fast as possible, since you’re here now.”

Before he turned away, he looked at Hermione and Pansy B, frowning slightly, but apparently unquestioning why they were there, since he left quickly after.

Ron frowned. “Bond Street? That’s a rather busy shopping street. It there’s something happening with multiple time lines, the Muggles will freak out.”

“Luckily, it’s in the middle of the night” Pansy B said sarcastically, rolling her eyes.

Harry agreed and Hermione decided that all of them needed to go there. Just in case that it would somehow help Pansy B and Draco to go back to their time line.

They stepped into the apparition lot and got to the street, where two Aurors were already looking after one Muggle who was probably thinking he was dreaming. In the middle of the street, a very incandescent bluish orb was forming and lighting up all the shops around.

Hermione stepped forwards and turned back to the group. “It’s a portal! Ron, your wish worked! We can send them back like that!”

Draco’s heart fell and it felt as if it had shattered on the floor. He had always hoped to be able to stay with this version of Harry. Yes, he had lied to him and yes, there was a creepy shrine in his backyard, but he was a nice person. He cared for Draco and that was something he had always wanted to feel. Now, with this portal appearing, Draco knew that there was no possibility in which he could stay here.

“Finally!” Pansy B called out and after looking at Hermione and Pansy A with raised eyebrows, she walked into it. Apparently, she was absolutely done with this version of the world.

Staying back, Draco bit his lower lip. “I can’t go back” he said and shook his head.

Pansy put a hand on his back and smiled at him. “You have to.”

Shaking his head, Draco stepped back even more. “I will not go back. I’d rather stay here.”

“You need to go back!” Harry stepped in. Draco turned to face him, clearly looking hurt.

“I don’t want to go back!” He hid his face in his hands and got down on his knees. “I DON’T WANT TO GO BACK!” he screamed against the loud sound of the burning portal. “I have everything here! I know you messed up, Harry, I know I haven’t been honest either, but this here can work, I know it!”

Harry kneeled on front of him, smiling slightly. There were tears streaming down his face and Draco felt the sadness in his whole being. “I’m sorry, Draco. I was the one to put you in this spot. But you have to go back. The Universe is completely thrown off course, which we can see here.” He pointed to the portal, before looking back. “Only you can fix it.”

“By going back!”

Nodding, Harry brushed some tears out of his face. “I’m sure this was important for you as well, Draco. Maybe you learnt that life is worth living and that…”

Draco shook his head vigorously. “Not my life!”

Harry held his head between his hands and kissed his forehead softly. “Every life, Draco. Even yours. Just promise me that you’ll do something amazing with your life! I know you can be great!”

“I’m sorry for disappointing you” Draco whispered only just about loud enough for Harry to hear it.

“You haven’t disappointed me, Draco. You never have and I’m sure you never will. Now you just have to be strong enough to go back and restart your life, okay?”

Draco nodded and they got back up to their feet. Inhaling deeply, Draco wanted to step closer to the portal, when another figure appeared in the light.

Everyone stepped forwards, wands in hand and they awaited the person who was stupid enough to walk into another world in the middle of Muggle London.


	12. Two of a Kind

The person walking out of the portal was… Harry _freaking_ Potter. The reaction of the people in this time line was different for everyone. Pansy started to laugh hysterically and Hermione lowered her wand, clearly swearing under her breath. Ron just stared, frozen in what seemed to be shock. Harry A groaned and shook his head, turned around and kicked a pebble from the street in frustration.

Harry B stopped dead in his track, when he saw the five people standing there – especially himself. Draco sighed and rubbed his forehead.

“Harry” Hermione said and frowned slightly, walking closer to the person standing closer to the light. “Do you know where you are?”

The other version of Harry frowned slightly. “Well, since all of you are alive and I’ve just seen Parkinson walk through that light… an alternate universeseems to be most logical answer?”

Hermione nodded and sighed. “Yeah. Draco started it and now we need him to go back.”

Harry B frowned slightly, quite possibly by Hermione having used Draco’s first name, but if that was the case, he didn’t say anything. In fact, he only shrugged and turned to face the Slytherin.

“So… Are you willingly coming back?” Harry B asked.

Draco frowned. “That sounds as if you’re attacking me, if I’m not willing to go back.”

The Gryffindor had a small gin on his face. He pointed over his shoulders and was clearly unable to hold back a smirk. “Well, there sort of is a huge portal to another universe in the middle of Muggle London. I’d rather not wait until morning, there would be too many Muggles we’d have to obliviate.”

Draco bit his lower lip and looked at the floor. He was right. Of course he was… Apparently, all Harrys in all the different universes were right. Always.

Harry B frowned and walked closer slowly. “I can see you’re not really happy with this…” He looked around and motioned Draco to follow him into an abandoned café. “Let’s talk. We’ve got a little time.”

Looking at Hermione and Harry A, Draco followed the other version of Harry into the café. It looked rather nice and high end. The white chairs were aligned perfectly with the square tables and the red cushions on top of them gave a little color into the world of it. The Gryffindor made coffee and placed the beverage in front of him.

“Don’t you think, the people who work here realize that coffee is missing?” Draco asked and raised his eyebrows.

Harry shrugged his shoulders and smiled. “There’s no logical reason as to why coffee is missing and people make mistakes all the time.”

Draco shook his head slightly. “You’re not really who I thought you were.”

Smirking slightly, Harry sighed. He looked outside, where the other version of him sat on the sidewalk, head in his hands. “I guess this Harry Potter’s not really breaking that many rules?”

Well… They broke into the Ministry multiple times, he had an underground shrine of with a dead Draco Malfoy inside in his backyard and was very clearly dealing with depression.

“You could say that” Draco carefully said.

Harry nodded slightly. “So, how long have you been in this world?”

Draco started telling the other man everything he had experienced (though he left out what happened in the underground burial site). The Gryffindor listened carefully, asked some questions, but stayed silent for the better part of the story. It was actually nice having someone listening to him. Yes, Harry A also listened, but there had always been this weird sad side to him, which Draco now understood. However, this version was more lively than the other and Draco liked it a little better.

Once he was done, Harry looked into his coffee. “Well” he started. “That is quite the tale.” He was quiet again, playing with his cup. “Where do we go from here? Obviously, you do need to come with me back to the other universe. However, I cannot let you go back to this kind of life.”

“What do you mean?” Draco narrowed his eyes and shook his head. This statement could mean literally anything.

Harry smiled softly. “I would like to offer you a job in the Ministry, Malfoy.”

Draco frowned. “What kind of job? I’m not happy with being a janitor.”

The Gryffindor chuckled and shook his head. “No. I’ve just lost my secretary to the insane ward – nothing to do with the job – and since you already did the job here, I do assume that you could be helpful for me back in our original time line.”

“You do realize that I've had this job for about two days, right?”

Harry laughed and nodded. “Don’t worry, Malfoy. I’ll help you every step of the way. I also have a rather old secretary called Marie Louise and she’ll be happy to help you. She keeps saying that I should get more help.”

Draco narrowed his eyes. “Well, okay. I do somehow understand.”

Both, Harry and Draco, left the coffee shop, Harry B walking over to Harry A who was sitting on the floor, his head in his hands. They talked for a while; meanwhile, everyone tried to listen in somehow. Neither Pansy nor Hermione or Ron had success and after some time, both Harrys got up. They walked over to the small group of people waiting for an answer.

Harry B smiled softly and looked at the other Gryffindor who looked incredibly lost. And so after a few silent moments, Harry A started talking. “Here’s the deal: I’m going to therapy, dropping my Head Auror business and retire somewhere outside of London, maybe even further away from all the publicity.”

“And?” Harry B asked as if waiting for another point they had been talking about.

Harry A rolled his eyes. “And I will tell the Minister about Draco and what happened. This story needs to be cleared as well.”

Draco’s original Harry nodded satisfied with what his doppelganger had said. He turned to Hermione and Ron and smiled weakly. “Do see to it that he does everything we’ve discussed here. It’s really important and I do think it would do him some good.”

Hermione nodded and hugged Harry B. “Thank you, Harry.”

"Harry for the win!" Ron smiled and hugged his best mate as well. "Thanks."

They all said goodbye and Draco was incredibly sad: Pansy A was such a better version of her friend than her original Pansy! He would have loved to trade those two versions! This could, however, not be done…

When Harry B and Draco walked towards the portal, Draco looked back over his shoulders and sighed softly. Harry B must have heard it, since he turned to him and smiled. “Don’t worry, Malfoy. Maybe having lived in this environment can give you the mental force to deal with anything that’s happening in your original life.”

Draco nodded softly. “I just wish that maybe I could have kept this sort of life. It was kind of amazing.”


	13. New Life

It was the second time in his entire life, when he had entered the cemetery. The first time had been when they buried his mother. He had been one of the few people attending her funeral. His father hadn’t even bothered. 

The headstone was made of pure marble, something his mother had told him to do when she had found herself to be deathly sick. And he couldn’t really tell her no. Not while she was dying. And yes, it taken him almost everything he had saved in money, but he wanted to respect her wishes.

Even though he hadn’t been here more than once, he still knew where she laid. Walking over the pebbled ground, he finally knelled down in front of the small garden. In his hands, a small white rose, which he laid on top of the grass.

“You will not believe what happened to me in the past few years, mother” he started and smiled softly. It had been a few months since they had left the parallel universe and he had started to work as Harry’s personal assistant rather than secretary. Marie Louise, Harry’s oldest secretary, had decided she’d rather not retire and so, she stayed there.

He had met up with Blaise and Theodore and even Gregory in a pub, talked about how he had been a shitty friend and that he was now trying his best to change his way. After he had told them his crazy story (and they had thought that he was in fact crazy), they had just been about to give up on him, when Harry had walked in and joined them at the table as well. They had since then started to be a very tight knit group and even if Draco sometimes fell back into his old way of living, his friends would get him out of it. And if that wasn’t working, there was always the secret weapon: Harry Potter.

“You know, I have my friends back – well, most of them – and I even managed to get a date. In fact, we’re meeting tonight for the first time. You remember how you always told me that life might be better some day? I think I found this day. I’d like to think that maybe you were around to look out for me, you know?”

Draco felt the soft grass under his hands as he trailed his fingers over the ground. She had always told him that meeting Lucius Malfoy had changed her life once she had seen him and Draco could only dream what would happen after tonight.

Getting up, he smiled at the headstone. There was no doubt in his mind that his mother was going to be with him forever. And if there was any doubt, maybe he could ask Harry what he thought about it. He seemed to have a little experience with being an orphan.

Draco left the graveyard behind him and drove his car through London into a hidden parking area, which not many had found. He had started his driver’s license after Harry had shown him how cars worked. And just knowing that has father would have spit fire if he’d known that Draco would someday drive a car made this an enjoyment.

The restaurant was just a few steps away and he was sure that if there was a decent prized marketing team and the restaurant would hire them, there would be no free parking (or tables) available. At any time. However, for now it remained as an insider tip for people around here.

Draco had been surprised when his date had suggested this place, as he was sure (until then) that nobody had ever heard of it.

Walking into the front door, he saw his date immediately and went over to him, sitting down on the opposite side and smirking.

Harry looked up and smiled softly. “Good evening, Draco, how was the visit?”

“It was good. Somehow it helped clear things and I have no idea how that happened” Draco explained and smirked.

Shrugging his shoulders, Harry chuckled. “That’s what I’ve figured out as well. Whenever I have a hard decision to make, I go and visit my parent’s grave. Or anybody’s actually. They just listen and by the end of this very one-sided conversation I do have the knowledge I need.”

Draco grinned. “It’s kind of sad to think about that, don’t you think?”

“It’s part of life, right?” Harry grinned as the waiter approached them with some wine which Harry had chosen for the evening.

Leaning back in his seat, Draco was sure he was going to enjoy the dinner and date. Harry had always looked out for him and they’ve had a lot of discussions about basically everything and life. It wasn’t always a nice discussion and sometimes they had screamed at each other, but they somehow always ended it by apologizing and seeing the other’s perspective.

Actually, whenever Draco had seen Harry these past few weeks, he had felt those stupid butterflies in his stomach. Now, finally being out and able to talk to him like that made his life worth living.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this is the end of this story.
> 
> I'll tell you now tha I will make a 1 month long break from uploading any new stories. I still have one unfinished story and one or two chapters for that. Apart from that, I want to polish my new one so I don't have any stress giving it to you. Anyway: See you in February and Happy New Year!


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